Part 34: Blackwell Convergence - Update 9

Update 9

After the drama of the previous evening, Rosa and Joey find themselves at a bit of a loss on how to proceed in their search for answers about the Countess's reappearance.

The Meltzer Brothers



Josie mentioned the Meltzer foundation as being the financial backers for the Park Gallery. It's a long shot, but perhaps they'll know something?



Hi. Is this the Meltzer Foundation?
Yes.

This guy looks and sounds pretty annoyed at being interrupted. He's yet another character voiced by Gilbert.

Oh, good. I was hoping to ask you a few questions.
Paul, this one's for you.

Hahaha, I like how he has an annoyed portrait, and then an even more annoyed portrait

Hm? Oh! Sure thing. Come on over and step into my office.

Paul, on the other hand, is clearly the PR guy for the company.



A family business, apparently. Paul's "office" is literally just the other side of the room.

Rosangela Blackwell.
A pleasure. So. What can we do for you?
I was hoping to talk to you about what you do here.
Really? Well well well. We're moving up in the world, Charlie.
Uh huh.

Charlie is immediately unlikeable, while Paul is charismatic in that life insurance salesman sort of way.

So, Rosangela. You with a newspaper?
I'm sort of... freelance.
Struggling, eh? Well, that's what the Meltzer Foundation is all about. Isn't that right, Charlie?
Uh huh.
Well, ask away.

You know, if I was Paul, I'd stop trying to get Charlie involved in these discussions. It can't be good for business.



You know, I wonder that myself. Hey Charlie, what DO we do here?
We give away money, Paul.
That's right. We're into private investments. We grant risk-free capital to struggling businesses.

Risk-free? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

You really just give away money?
Hah. No, not exactly.
It's about giving money away wisely.
You heard the man. If you want the low-down on what we do, just ask.

Ah, so presumably you have to make a business case first.



Rosa decides to scope these guys out while she's here, and receives the canned speech from Paul for her trouble.

Let's say you have a brilliant idea for a business, but you've made some mistakes in the past. You've got bad credit, or were in debt for a long time. No reputable bank in the country would give you a loan. Or if they did, they'd charge you a fortune in interest. But not us. We believe in a second chance. We'll loan you the money to kickstart your business in return for a share of the profits. If your business takes off, wonderful. We both win. If not, we're the one who pays for it.
Your foundation is pretty generous.
Well, we don't give money to just anybody. Charlie over there is in charge of separating the wheat from the chaff. When someone comes to us with their hand out, Charlie does his research an makes sure they are worth the risk. You wouldn't believe some of the bums we get in here!

That is pretty generous, actually. I guess that's why Charlie has the whole angry vibe going, he's got to play the bad cop to Paul's good cop.



Rosa goes through the usual questions from her notebook. You'll notice I've barely shown the notebook this game, since it really is only used for providing dialogue options.

Of course. Can you believe it? A heart attack, at his age. He looked healthy. Of course, who knows what kind of drugs those actors take?
Josie Park told me that you invested in her gallery.
You know Josie? How's she doing?
She's fine, I guess.
We're both rooting for her. Right, Charlie?
Sure.



Why do you ask?
No reason.

This is a fairly random question from Rosa. I guess you could draw a really long bow... Frank was murdered by the Countess, Claude painted a picture of the Countess, and his painting went on display in the Park Gallery, which is funded by these guys. But at this point I think Rosa is just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks.

Well, thanks for taking to me. I might be back later.
Sure thing. Here, take my card. If you have any questions, just email.
Oh, so you're on Bmail too?
Heh. Isn't everybody?



Not much more to be done here, it seems. Unless Rosa wants to ask for a grant for her novel writing career?

As Rosa leaves the room, Paul calls over to his brother:

God, did you see that chick walk? She waddles like a duck.

Hahaha, poor Rosa



Joey overhears them, and sticks his head back through the door to listen in.

Our reporter friend. She's kinda your type.
What do you mean?
Yeesh, Charlie. Come up for air. She walked right past your desk.
I didn't see any duck.
Never mind.

Charlie comes across as a real antisocial creep.



Joey can stick around and eavesdrop, but really, what's the point? There isn't any info we want out of these guys at this point. If we change our mind later, we can always come back.

Monique's Theme



Rosa, however, wants to keep drawing that long bow.

Why? Are you looking for a loan?
Maybe. You deal with them?
They invested in our last film.
"Water Under the Bridge"?
That's the one.

Well, what do you know. They actually did have something to do with Frank after all. Huh.

I assume they got their money back, since the film was such a success.
Not that it's any of your business, but yes they did.
Anything else you can tell me about the Meltzer Foundation?
Any deal between Meltzer and CubeStar is private information. If you want to learn more about them, look them up. They're on the internet.

We've already looked Meltzer up, but let's see what we can find out about the CubeStar itself.



Not a lot of information there. Next, Rosa looks up info on the Water Under The Bridge film.



The film is a worthy attempt by CubeStar Films, but it unfortunately cannot escape the by-the-numbers plot or the unfortunate tragedy of Lyons' real-life death.

Apparently the film wasn't very good, despite the hype. Note the name of the actress - Rebecca Chen. This is a bit of nameplay by Gilbert. Rosa's two voice actresses were Sande Chen and Rebecca Whittaker. It's not the first time he has used the name of cast members in the Blackwell games and it won't be the last.



Still no good leads, but it is a tiny bit suspicious that the Meltzer Foundation just happened to sponsor two organisations that have employees with links to the Countess. Rosa and Joey chat a bit about them.

Yeah, pretty impressive. If you had a view like that, I might not mind hanging around while you sleep.
My view's not that bad.
Sweetheart, we're looking at the brickwork of the building next door. Maybe if you asked real nice, a rich investor would give us some money too.
What would I say? That we need money to hunt down a lost ghost?
Rich people are eccentric. They might believe you.
I don't think so.



Let's check out their card.

Hm. Paul has a Bmail address, just like me.

Yep, Paul is the PR guy, like I thought. Makes sense.

The Meltzer Brothers



Uh huh. Paul? She's back.

Let's talk to these guys again.

Rosangela! Come on over and step into my office.
Wow. He never gets tired of that joke, does he?

Hahaha



Let's try asking about their relationship with CubeStar...

Monique told me that you invested in CubeStar Films.
Monique? Oh yes. She's the executive producer, isn't she?
Yes.
She's doing a great job. That place is earning money hand-over-fist.

Their latest film certainly did well enough, despite apparently being a critical flop. Rosa airs a concern, though...



Did they? Yes, I suppose they did.
That benefits you too, doesn't it?

That's a very thinly-veiled accusation. Odd coming from Rosa, especially as we have no real evidence to think Meltzer would be involved.

Oh, I see where this is going.
What do you expect us to do? Give back the money? We're a private foundation. Money has to come in in order for money to go out.
Someone died. Doesn't that bother you?
Sure it bothers me. Death is a horrible thing. But I don't see what it has to do with us.

Rosa obviously doesn't trust the Meltzer Foundation, but with nothing to actually accuse them of, she decides to leave.

I might be back later.
Sure thing. Drop on by anytime.



After Rosa leaves, Paul continues chatting with Charlie. Considering we effectively just accused him of being happy about having profited from Frank's death, he doesn't seem at all bothered.

What are you talking about?
Why do you think she keeps coming in here?
Give it a rest, Paul.



Joey decides to float on inside and see if the brothers say anything interesting.

Hey, when are we going to get a real company email address?
What's wrong with the one we've got?
Come on. Bmail? Who is going to take us seriously when we've only got a Bmail account?
It does the job.
*sigh* At least we have a real internet connection. Although I don't trust this wireless crap.

Paul and Charlie will chatter randomly, though they cycle pretty quickly through their dialogue options.



Sounds thrilling.

Charlie sounds like an exciting dude.

Hey Charlie, is this wireless interest thing safe?
Of course it's safe.
I just read online that they can give you cancer.
It won't give you cancer, Paul.
Then maybe YOU should sit next to it.
Give it a rest, Paul.

Suddenly I don't blame Charlie for being looking so sullen and frustrated. Paul must be insufferable to work with if he carries on like this all the time.



Joey checks out the scenery. Seriously, he's absolutely obsessed with views in this game.

I can't stand this Bmail account!
What's the problem now?
I'm getting all sorts of spam. I got three from this "Tomo" person. Who the heck is Tomo?
Just delete them, Paul.

There's another Tomo reference...

Doesn't it bother you that anybody with Bmail software can log into our email?
Only if they have your password, Paul. Just don't tell anybody and you'll be fine.

Paul is laying the internet thing on a bit thick, now. Between that and Rosa having commented twice on his Bmail account, I guess the game is hinting that we should try to hack into his emails and see what's going on.

Again, there really isn't much reason for us to be suspicious of the Meltzer Foundation, other than them happening to have backed two companies with minor links to the Countess, so this all seems a bit weird, but we'll go with it. Of course, we don't know actually know Paul's password, so we'll need to figure that out somehow.



Joey keeps floating around the office and checking out various items...



On the filing cabinet next to Paul is a wireless modem.

What the heck is that thing? Probably one of those computer things Red's always playing with.



Getting Joey to interact with the wireless modem has him move in to inspect it closer, which interrupts the signal.

Hey! My internet just went down. Stupid wireless.
It should come up again in a minute.

Moving away again, the signal returns.



Now, bear with me here, because the Adventure Game Puzzle Logic is pretty ridiculous on this one. We want Paul's Bmail password, but he's not just going to say it out loud. However, by interrupting the signal from his modem, it causes his email to log off, and he has to sign back in again.

Hey Charlie, what's my Bmail password again?
Don't you remember anything? It's "Tennis53". Just write it down.
No way, someone might find it.

And, fortunately for us, he completely forgets his password and has Charlie say it out loud. I guess even if he did remember it, Joey could have watched his keystrokes. Still, this is probably the most unintuitive puzzle in Convergence, particularly since we have no good reason to actually be spying on these guys to begin with.



Well, anyway, we got the password. Let's use it!



Frustratingly, the password is case sensitive. The first time I did this, I typed in "tennis53" and it wouldn't let me log in, and I had to go all the way back and repeat the wireless scene



Bingo! We're in. Let's see what Paul's been up to...

FROM: Josie Park

Hi Paul!!

Just a quick letter to let you know that everything is going great! Our new artist is fantastic and I can't wait for the opening tomorrow. You will come, won't you? After all, you made this possible!!

- Josie Park, Park Gallery Curator

I guess he never came. We certainly didn't see him when we were there. Also nice to see Josie is just as hyperactive in her writing as she is in real life.



FROM: Charles Meltzer

Paul-

I'm going to be out of the office next week to meet with the Sharming Widow. Could you do me a favor and check my email while I am away? If I get anything important, give me a shout.

-Charles

I'm pretty sure the Sharming Widow is a reference to The Shivah, though I'm not sure since I never actually played it.



FROM: Charles Meltzer

Paul,

What do you mean you don't remember my password? I picked it specifically so both you and I would remember it. I'm going to drag you screaming into the digital age if it kills me!

-Charles

Apparently Paul has a serious blind spot when it comes to passwords.



I guess Paul wasn't kidding when he said he was getting emails about Tomo.



Oogle "Artists" in order to learn how to talk to them? That sounds retarded.



FROM: Charles Meltzer

Paul,

The password is that silly name you called me when we were kids. If you've forgotten, I'm sure as heck not going to remind you.

-Charles

That's all of the emails Paul has in his inbox. Nothing really notable there, but perhaps Charlie has something more for us?



This seems a logical username, given Paul used paulm... and sure enough, we get asked for a password, so it is a valid username. But no sensible guesses - Chuck, Chucky, Charlie - let us in. We'll have to figure this out later.



Let's Oogle artists. As you may have already guessed, this is going to be part of an annoying puzzle soon. The article goes on to say:

"I like the colors" - yours is a subjective opinion. Ask the artist why the color choices were made.

Many viewers are tactless when it comes to an artist's work. I hope this will help you avoid many of the pitfalls. Good luck!

This article could probably have been shortened by simply writing "Artists are huge pricks."


On that note, I'll sign off for today. I know it's been a couple of slower updates over these past two days, but things are just about to pick up pace in Convergence!